Jahi McMath arrives at long-term care facility, says family

SAN FRANCISCO --
The 13-year-old California girl who was declared brain dead after tonsil surgery has
been taken to a facility where her family says they can take care of her.

A critical care team took Jahi McMath while she was attached
to a ventilator but without a feeding tube on Sunday night from Children's
Hospital Oakland, after a weekslong battle with the hospital over her care.

Her family wouldn't disclose where she had been taken. Her
uncle, Omari Seeley, said Monday that she traveled by ground and that there
were no complications in the transfer, suggesting Jahi may be in California.

The new facility has "been very welcoming with open
arms. They have beliefs just like ours," he said. "They believe as we
do."

Her family said Jahi is receiving antibiotics and nutritional supplements at the new facility.

“She's going to be treated like the innocent little girl she
is and not as a deceased body,” her uncle told CBS News Monday.

While the move ends what had been a very public and tense
fight with the hospital, it also brings on new challenge: caring for her.

Jahi went into cardiac arrest while recovering from surgery
to fix severe sleep apnea, a condition where the sufferer's breath stops or
becomes labored while sleeping. To help her, surgeons removed her tonsils and
other parts of her nose and throat.

"There is no evidence to anyone that suggests Jahi McMath
has any chance of recovering any brain function,” Douglas Straus, an attorney
for Children’s Hospital, told CBS News. “That is a sad, but undisputed fact."

This is different from being in a coma when there is brain
activity, as was the case for Terri Schiavo, who was at the center of a
right-to-die struggle more than a decade ago. Schiavo had a heart attack and suffered
brain damage that left her in a persistent vegetative state, or coma, and her
husband wanted to remove her feeding tube over the objections of her parents.

The hospital refused to fit her with a feeding tube or a
breathing tube that would help stabilize her during a move. Hospital officials
say it was unethical to perform medical procedures on a dead person.

When the hospital refused to do the procedures and after
weeks of court battles, the two sides reached an agreement, provided that
Winkfield would be held responsible if her daughter went into cardiac arrest.

David Durand, the hospital's Chief of Pediatrics, said in an email Sunday that the girl was released to the coroner. The coroner then released her into the custody of Winkfield, as per the court order.

The family's lawyer, Christopher Dolan, said Jahi's
condition suffered because of poor nutrition during her hospital stay. "We
are very relieved she got safely to where she needed to be," he said.

"She's in very bad shape," he said. "You
would be too, if you hadn't had nutrition in 26 days and were a sick little
girl to begin with."